The model Wright Flyer was constructed in 2003 and flown in Dayton that summer, recreating the first sustained flight of a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft, a feat pioneered by Daytonians Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903.
The 2003 reenactment was part of an 18-day event called Inventing Flight: The Centennial Celebration, which marked the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic flight.
Anderson said he was gifted a piece of the replica aircraft by a coffeeshop customer in 2012.
He recently hung the piece in his Gather by Ghostlight location in the recently renovated Dayton Arcade. Gather offers craft coffee, fast casual breakfast and lunch, sharable small plates, plus wine, beer and cocktails in the evening.
“The Arcade is a place where I’m sure the Wright brothers frequented in their day, so it felt fitting to hang the wing rib there,” Anderson said. “One of the reasons I’m so proud to have a space in the Arcade is that sense of history.”
The Arcade was built from 1902 to 1904, exactly when the Wright brothers were making their massive advances in powered flight.
Installed above a doorway at Gather, the wing rib is rather inconspicuous, at first glance giving the appearance of a hockey stick.
But a closer look with a keen eye gives details of its significance.
Jim Woodford, a Daytonian with an interest in the Wright brothers and member of the Wright Image Group board, said as much.
A friend of Anderson’s, Woodford had been visiting Gather regularly — he’s a fan of the Thursday jazz nights — before noticing the rib.
“I’d been going down there for a month, maybe even two, before I finally looked up and saw it above the door,” Woodford said. “... When Shane confirmed it, I though, ‘Geez, we need to do something about that.’”
Woodford volunteered to create a plaque to rightfully acknowledge and label the historic piece.
“As a Wright brothers enthusiast, it was exciting,” he said.
Anderson welcomed the idea and said the finished plaque will be hung near the wing rib soon, cementing the artifact in the arcade’s long and ongoing history.
“I often wonder if there was a coffee shop in the Arcade back then, who would have been there? I could just picture the Wright brothers, or Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Kettering, or the Pattersons, just sitting there with a cup of coffee, talking about the state of the world,” Anderson said.
“The Arcade is like the gem in the center of the Gem City, so the idea of those halls and that room holding so much history is really special.”
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